Our health system crisis: NT to increase intake of grad nurses, midwives to address hospitals short-staffing
The government will markedly increase the number of graduate nurses and midwives employed across NT Health by January 2022 in a bid to address chronic short-staffing across the system.
Northern Territory
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HEALTH Minister Natasha Fyles has promised to hire more graduate nurses and midwives to address shortages across the Territory’s strained healthcare system.
The government has vowed the extra graduate nurses next year will be attracted to the Northern Territory by a clear pathway to permanent employment in NT Health.
Ms Fyles’ announcement follows a week-long campaign on the poor health of the Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospitals by the NT News, looking at how the crumbling system could be fixed.
Ms Fyles said the NT government would increase the number of graduate nurses and midwives employed across NT Health from 167 to at least 201 by January 2022.
“All graduates have the opportunity to apply for employment in the Territory and 85 per cent of graduates from the most recent cohort were employed with NT Health after completion,” she said.
“In addition, the Department of Health runs constant recruitment campaigns to fill health staffing shortages in the Territory.”
Ms Fyles also said action was being taken to reduce the number of beds being taken up by aged care residents.
She said Regis Aged Care was allocating 21 beds to NT Health.
“The Commonwealth Government has also provisionally funded 60 new aged care beds and we look forward to seeing further progress on this,” Ms Fyles said.
She acknowledged the mental health space had been placed under intense stress in recent years, and promised a new jointly-funded $30m mental health inpatient facility at the Royal Darwin Hospital would be built in coming months.
It would include 18 beds, but Ms Fyles did not provide an opening date for the new facility.
The extra graduate nurses will provide some relief to staff on the ground, who have been stretched to the limit in recent months.
“Our frontline health workers do an outstanding job and I understand the significant pressure they are under given the challenging circumstances of the pandemic, which has exacerbated staffing shortages,” Ms Fyles said.
Nursing shortages have had a major impact on the performance of NT Health in recent weeks.
Royal Darwin Hospital was placed into a Code Yellow last week, causing some non-essential surgeries to be cancelled. The RDH was only brought out of Code Yellow after a third of Palmerston Regional Hospital’s emergency department was shuttered.
Prominent medical experts in the Territory have in recent days called for urgent action to bring in nursing staff to ease the shortage.
Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation branch president Dr Thomas Fowles urged the government to abandon plans for a pay freeze of healthcare workers and instead throw money at urgent recruitment.
AMA NT president Dr Robert Parker pushed for an arrangement used to fly mango-pickers from the Pacific Islands into the Territory to be used as a model for bringing in overseas nurses.
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